


#pykexit

by ElectricAlice, janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Based on a True Story, Boats and Ships, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fluff and Crack, I Don't Even Know, Inspired by Twitter, Jon Snow knows something, Love at First Sight, M/M, Metafiction, Modern Westeros, Multi, Politics, Robb Stark is a Gift, Satire, Socialism, The Author Regrets Nothing, Twitter, What Was I Thinking?, i am honestly sorry except i'm not, indeed, now with the sequel because we could, this is about farage's brexit floatilla and bob geldof doing his valiant last stand, yes i couldn't resist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-16 16:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7275835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectricAlice/pseuds/ElectricAlice, https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>That’s why Robb is the only journalist on location when the floatilla appears on the horizon.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Robb first doesn’t know what to make out of the forty fishing boats coming down the river. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>That is, until he notices LEAVE and PYKEXIT signs hanging over all of them, written in gold on a black banner. He rummages in his bag, maybe he had a binocular with him - he finds it and takes a better look at the frontrunner boat.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>What in the seven hells?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ... so, if you don't know what happened last week in London: the leader of the party wanting Britain to leave the EU organized a floatilla of boats to go under the Parliament and protest in the name of British fishermen. Bob Geldof was on a cruise ship that tried to stop him.
> 
> It's all recapped [here](https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewchampion/brexit-flotilla?utm_term=.lmB2yOL7zP#.im5AMyY4XN) and [here](https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahjewell/hi-america-british-politics-went-completely-mad-today?utm_term=.cj9Wmvq9Gr#.vaYNlAxmYK).
> 
> I linked it to my lovely co-author over there. We go like 'this is amazing crackfic material it totally should be Balon wanting to secede and we have Pykexit instead of Brexit'. She goes like OKAY I'LL MAKE FANART FOR THIS. I go like OKAY WE HAVE TO DO THIS JUST TO HAVE OBERYN TELL BALON HE'S A FRAUD. 
> 
> We did it. I'm honestly sorry, except that I'm really not. So: the fic and the crack are mine, the fanarts and half of the fake tweets' restyling are electricalice's and they're definitely the best thing of this complete madness. 80% of what happened in this happened as well. (Not the Davos thing, alas.)
> 
> Obligatory disclaimers: first, we're both Italian but we like to think we have a decent grasp of basic UK politics/EU politics. Admittedly Balon ended up being a mix of Farage and our resident xenophobe Italian politician but hey, it's an AU, just roll with it. (Also there's a few things which are definitely jabs at some recent Italian politics fails but most is about the actual people that inspired this.) Hopefully we managed to be actually funny. Second: some of these tweets are actually inspired by the ones you see in the Buzzfeed linked articles, some weren't, but thanks very much to the main reporter - a few of Robb's tweets are based on his own. Third: I obviously own absolutely nothing except the crack. Fourth: just pretend that modern Westeros exists in the modern world context and they'd actually know what a socialist party is or know actual British rock groups okay, I needed that for plot purposes.
> 
> Also I had to post it before the actual vote - hopefully this shit is still going to be funny two days from now. (Also: I don't really want to make political statements or anything except for how it makes my leanings obvious but really we just thought that shit was hilarious and Farage is ridiculous. Peace.)
> 
> Tldr: I hope you enjoy the crack.
> 
> ETA: given the results of the referendum, I edited the last A/N.

Admittedly, Robb Stark hadn’t woken up this morning thinking it would be a much different day than his usual.

Okay, given that his usual right now is running around the Red Keep trying to corrupt some of the staff so that he can get in and try to interview the almighty PM Tywin Lannister about the upcoming referendum regarding whether the Iron Islands will stay into the Seven’s Union or secede, it’s probably _not_ what regular people would consider normal.

Still, while Robb knew that journalism didn’t pay much in this day and age and while he’s probably lucky that he landed an internship for _WesterosFeed_ for which he does _not_ come up with dumb quizzes, he also would like to fucking upgrade from ‘we like you but we can’t hire you for good, are you all right with another three-months long contract without a single benefit’, and maybe if he can get to interview Lannister when no one else has managed in the last couple of weeks he can at least ask them to consider a contract with some benefits.

He’s really burning to ask him _why, for the love of everything, did you put that referendum in your electoral program if you think those idiots leaving is suicidal_ \- fine, he knows the answer, but he’d really like to hear it from the man himself.

The answer being, he wanted votes in the islands and since Balon Greyjoy, the local representative and founder of the IIIP - Iron Island Independence Party, couldn’t he have picked a dumber name - has been gaining extreme right-wing votes proclaiming that if he was elected he’d leave the Union and fuck all those continental bastards who stole rightful money from their sacred islands and forced them to adhere to fishing quotas. If _Lannister_ promised the referendum he’d beat them at their own game, right?

Robb frankly fucking hates Balon Greyjoy, but what can you do other than hoping that his fellow Ironborn are smarter than he is.

Anyway, trying to corrupt one of the staff to see if they’ll let him in is the reason why he’s standing on the banks of the Blackwater river, near the Red Keep - the seat of Parliament - at fucking nine in the morning after waking up at six (commuting is hard but he can’t afford an apartment in King’s Landing - hell, he and Jon, who has an internship for another way less trashy magazine, can barely afford to share one in Rosby).

No one else from any other newspaper is there - they’re all in Highgarden covering Margaery Tyrell being officially appointed head of the Rose, the Reach’s only party that has still some weight at election times, having given up on talking to Lannister. Personally, Robb thinks that naming a party after a damned flower is ridiculous, but then again there’s a reason why he’s in journalism and not in politics.

However, that’s why Robb is the only journalist on location when the floatilla appears on the horizon.

Robb first doesn’t know what to make out of the forty fishing boats coming down the river. 

That is, until he notices LEAVE and PYKEXIT signs hanging over all of them, written in gold on a black banner. He rummages in his bag, maybe he had a binocular with him - he finds it and takes a better look at the frontrunner boat.

What in the seven hells?

\--

\--

He sends that tweet and then immediately calls Jon - maybe he knows something?

Jon picks up at first ring.

“Robb?” He asks. The line sounds - disturbed?

“Jon, am I hallucinating or Balon Greyjoy is leading a fucking floatilla up the river?”

“Er, no. Actually, I’m on his boat?”

“What are you doing on _his_ boat?”

“Mormont sent me there the moment I got into office this morning, but the asshole hasn’t talked to any of us yet. I mean, there’s me and a few other people, but -”

“Yeah, right, they only called people from the respectable newspapers. It’s fine, I’ll, uh, see what I can cover from here. Gods, how fucking many are there?”

“Forty-two. I don’t even want to know what was going into his head, but he recruited a bunch of fishermen along the road.”

“You mean, he actually started from _somewhere else_?”

“Yeah, he left from the Stoney Sept this morning along with most of the boats.”

“Right. Well, thanks, I’ll try to cover it anyway.”

“Believe me, you want to be outside, not here.”

The line falls at that, but Robb knows enough. He figures it’s useless to stay where he is now - he takes a look at his twitter feed. He has already thirty retweets and a couple of people asking if he’s joking.

He takes his scooter from where he parked it, bless the journalists’s reserved spaces, and drives down the river - thankfully the boats aren’t going too fast. He’s at a decent distance in a couple of minutes. He parks on the side and goes down on the banks, then snaps a picture and posts it.

\--

\--

Well, he thinks as his phone starts vibrating - it’s all the likes and retweets, he hopes -, _maybe I could try to board the ship_. Or at least one of them.

He sees one coming just near the shore.

“Hey!” He shouts. Some guy who’s definitely from Pyke from the looks of it turns to look at him and moves closer to the ship’s rail.

“What do you want?”

“Uh, I’m - I’m a journalist, I was wondering if you’d let me up there so I can cover this story?”

The guy looks at him, then another next to him starts laughing. “Have you heard the accent? Come on, Maron, he’s from fucking Winterfell.”

“Yeah, good point. Sorry, no bloody northerners on my ship.”

“But -”

They both turn his back on him and go back towards the inside of the ship.

What a couple of bloody assholes, Robb thinks. His Twitter feed, meanwhile, is exploding.

Gods, what is this madness? His last tweet has just hit 150 retweets and 300 likes - _since when_?

That’s when he hears the music.

The last thing he had thought was that someone would start blaring Clash songs from one of those boats, but that’s definitely _Should I Stay or Should I Go_ , isn’t it? With a damn good sound system, if he’s not wrong. And it’s obviously coming from farther down the river, probably where the first boat is. Not really far then.

Robb takes a breath and breaks into a short run, and that’s when he sees that -

There’s another boat. Which is covered in _IN_ signs. Which is putting itself more or less in front of Balon Greyjoy’s.

He’s also pretty sure that Oberyn Martell is standing on deck with a megaphone in his hand.

Robb doesn’t have a clue of what the hell is one of Westeros’s most famous musicians and humanitarian activists, never mind political activists (he never made a mystery of voting for Mance Rayder at every election - too bad that Mance is too radical left for about ninety per cent of the entire Union and he never wins) doing on a fucking boat covered in _IN_ signs in front of Balon Greyjoy’s, neither of why is _Tyrion Lannister_ , the PM’s estranged son, standing next to him with another bunch of people - he’s sure one of them is Oberyn’s niece Arianne, a fairly famous actress, the others he can’t really see, but then again… Balon Greyjoy is riding across the Blackwater with a floatilla himself.

Oberyn’s boat has a great sound system, though. Robb is close and his ears might be about to burst -

And then the sound gets shut off and Oberyn Martell clears his throat, and then -

“Here are the facts about fishing, Balon! Pyke makes more money than any other realm in this union from fishing, and it has the biggest quota for fishing in Westeros! You are no fisherman’s friend! You are in the Union Parliament’s fishing committee and you only ever attended one of the meetings on _forty_! You are a fraud, Balon!!! Go back this river and use a paddle because you’re on a fucking canoe!”

The nearest Pykexit boat erupts in insults and screams.

Robb takes out his phone, zooms on Oberyn’s boat, snaps a picture of him saying again that _Balon Greyjoy is no true fisherman’s friend_ , and opens his Twitter account with shaking fingers.

\--

\--

“What the fuck,” Robb says as his notifications go off the roof. He has no idea of what the hell is going on here, but maybe if the _Pykexit_ people were assholes, this crowd might not be?

“Hey!” He screams, and a guy on the side actually turns and notices him.

A very nice looking guy - dark hair, a bit taller than him, dark eyes, well-dressed, and wait, _isn’t that one of Balon’s sons_? Not one of the first two - sure as fuck those two were with their dad, they’re as reactionary as he is. Heck, Robb is sure that one of them was in the boat that turned him away earlier.

“Yes?” The guy - shit, what was his name, Robb can’t remember - at least isn’t looking at him as if he’s a complete moron.

“Uh, I -” He clears his throat and tries to shout more, there’s a lot of noise. “I’m a journalist! I’d like to cover this! Can I come over there?”

“Wait a moment!” The guy turns and talks to Arianne Martell for a moment, then shrugs and looks back at him.

“Sure. Go back a bit, we’re coming to get you.”

Robb goes a bit further down and waits for Oberyn’s small-size cruise ship to move closer to the bank, then hops up on the rail and manages to get himself hoisted in. Fine, he grabs at the side and then he has to fucking climb over the rail since it’s not a regular boat, good thing he goes to the gym regularly because Jon drags him. He eventually crashes on the wet pavement harder than he’d have liked, but then Totally Hot Guy from before helps him up and Robb decides that maybe undignified isn’t too bad for now.

“Hey,” Hot Guy says. “Sorry about that, but - er. Oberyn needs to go back in the field. Like, probably now. God, this is fucking embarrassing.”

“For _you_? By the way - thanks. Robb Stark,” he says, extending a hand.

“Theon Greyjoy,” he gets for an answer. Right. _Theon_. That was the name. “Sorry to meet you in these circumstances. Shit, this is fucking ridiculous, but if you disagree with your bloody family’s politics what can you do. I have to make a stand, here. Also Oberyn’s right, my dad’s a fucking fraud.”

“So wait, you aren’t _for_... Pykexit?”

“Are you _insane_? If we leave we’re more fucked than you are. My dad’s an asshole and I’ve know that for years, I’m just sad people are voting for him. Anyway, if you want to ask Oberyn or _Tyrion_ I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you.”

“Gods, you might be saving my not exactly brilliant career up until now,” Robb says with a sigh.

“Really,” Theon replies, and then - he _winks_ at Robb. What? “I’ll remember that. Hey, Oberyn, you think you have five minutes to talk to him? Maybe he can give us some good press!”

“Yes, since all the journalists went with _them_. Well, the ones who aren’t in Highgarden when there are a lot more pressing matters to cover here,” Oberyn says at once, and turns a frankly disarming smile on Robb. “We’ll take the ones we get.”

Robb clears his throat and hopes to the gods that he asks the right questions.

\--

\--

“This is _outrageous_!”

There are moments when Jon regrets that he got the traineeship at the _Wall_ magazine. Like this one. Why does director Mormont think that he should be always sent to interview the assholes? Ah, yes, because it’s _the way you toughen up in this job_.

Sure as fuck Jon would rather be anywhere else. Possibly not on the _head boat_ of Balon Greyjoy’s _floatilla_. Especially since he’s surrounded by bloody _Pykexit_ signs. He already thinks that the Iron Islands leaving would be disastrous, and he has to interview the son of a bitch who had the idea in the first place? Why did he get any votes again? Jon voted for Mance Rayder, damn it.

“How dare a bloody multimillionaire singer without any clue of what he’s doing dare making fun of the exploitation of honest Ironborn men and women?” Balon sounds furious - he’s definitely pissed that Oberyn ruined his show.

“So, uhm, I imagine that you will keep on until the Parliament even if you ran into… an opposition?” He asks.

“Of course, who do you take me for? If I start something I finish it, _boy_ , and be glad that I can’t kick journalists out. Northerner _bastards_ on my ship. Fucking hell.”

Jon would like to tell him _as if you’re the first person who ever told me_ , and he notes down the answer. Then he notices Balon taking out a cigarette.

Thankfully Tris takes it - at least they had the sense of sending the only other reporter from the islands with him. “Mr. Greyjoy, I remember that you made that campaign to quit smoking a few years ago?”

“I did quit, boy,” the man replies. “I just think that doctors have it wrong about it.”

Jon wants to throw himself into the fucking Blackwater - he doesn’t just because he knows that it’d be certain death if he did.

He takes out his phone, reads the text Ygritte sent him earlier - she’s on some neutral boat going up and about the river - and then thinks for a moment, _should I_?

Then he decides that this is already too fucking ridiculous and Robb started a trend unwillingly before anyway, so why the hell not?

He smiles as he logs into his Twitter account, too.

\--

\--

If there’s something Ygritte would like to ask fucking Balon Greyjoy - she did text Jon with it before but she doubts he’ll ask i for her, but then again she can understand that he wouldn’t want that bastard to throw him out of the boat - is, _how did you think this stint was good advertising_?

Never mind Oberyn Martell’s soundsystem drowning everything out and making her detest the Clash at once, but at least she’s in a good position to take the pictures she’s paid for. She snaps another few, and then looks at the shore.

 _What the hell_.

That’s definitely Balon’s brother Aeron standing on the riverbank. Without a shirt and with his hands in the river. There are a few other people next to him who are - praying? What the fuck?

She motions Gendry - the poor guy who got saddled with driving her around the river today, he most probably didn’t expect this when he signed up for bringing tourists up and down the Blackwater - to move closer. Aeron is definitely saying something as he dumps handfuls of water on the other people’s heads.

“May the Drowned God bless us all!”

What - is he - oh, no. The Iron Islands already have a weirdass religion that everyone else in Westeros thinks is a cult, but whatever, their business. But is he really performing ablutions with water from the bloody Blackwater river? They’re all going to die of some non better specified illness within two weeks if their immune system isn’t made of pure steel.

“May the Drowned God bless our independence!” Everyone else parrots as they go near the bank and drink the godforsaken water just after Aeron does.

Gendry’s eyes are so wide it’d be almost comical.

“Miss, are they seriously asking the Drowned God to bless… Pykexit?”

“I wish I could say we’re hallucinating, but I’m not hallucinating that wanker’s brother floating up the river with forty boats, am I?”

Fucking hell, she thinks as she snaps another could of pictures, they’re all insane. No one who’ll see this will want to vote yes to bloody Pykexit.

Then that’s when she hears the noise from the main boat.

“Gendry, move closer,” she tells him - good thing that she’s a good photographer and Mormont paid for her to have the boat all to herself. Gendry does, and they move closer to Balon’s boat, where -

Wait a moment.

Oh, _no_.

“You know nothing about the plight of our fishermen!” Balon shouts. “Go back to your mansion and let us pass!”

Then a young man with a look of pure pain flashing across his face - or so Ygritte can see from here, but she’s fairly close - motions for Oberyn to hand over the megaphone.

“Dad, fuck’s sake, you’ve never set foot on a fishing boat for all your life, are you for real?”

“What are _you_ doing there? I told you countless times I never wanted to see you again, you _traitor_!”

Ah, right, has to be Balon’s infamous fourth son who moved from the Islands a while ago and is never mentioned or shown in any family portrait that gets usually shown around in election times.

“Likewise, but you’re being bloody ridiculous!”

“Aren’t _you_?”

Ygritte is snapping pictures as fast as she can by now, but then -

Then Balon’s brother Victarion, who she hadn’t seen up until now, shows up next to his brother with a _hose_ in his hands.

No. No, he’s not going to -

The flagship moves closer.

Victarion opens the darned thing and hits the boat with the fucking hose - the water hits poor Theon in the face, at least, and a few other people.

Ygritte looks back at her pictures after making sure she captures as much as she can, and wait -

_Was that Jon’s brother on the Remain boat filming the entire thing?_

\--

\--

“Fuck, I knew it,” Theon sighs, shrugging off his wet jacket.

“Hey, that was a valiant stand,” Tyrion Lannister says, patting him on the knee as he walks past. “I’ll make mine when we get to the Parliament.”

“Yeah, that’s why you boarded this bloody ship in the first place.”

Shit, of course Theon hadn’t planned on actually talking or making sure his father noticed his presence, but that was just too ridiculous and he had to say something. Especially since he knows that his father really knows shit about what he’s talking about most of the times, he’s lived with him long enough to know that. Now his jacket is definitely ruined, his shirt is too because that was most probably polluted as fuck river water and he’s just glad he hasn’t accidentally drank any of it, and given how chilly it is he’ll probably end up with a cold by the time this entire farce is done -

“Hey,” Robb Stark says as he moves closer, and Theon turns to look at him - well, at least one of them isn’t wet. “I’m sorry, that was shitty of them.”

“That was ridiculous, you mean,” Theon sighs.

“No, what your father said. I mean, I knew he was an asshole anyway but just - you don’t say that shit in public about someone you’re related to when you know people are recording you.”

Theon can’t keep the smirk in at that - if only.

“Believe me, that’s not the worst he could have done. Or that he’s done. But thanks, that’s appreciated.”

“Wait,” Robb says, taking off his nondescript green jacket and handing it over. _What_? “It’s cold, you’ll catch your death if you stay in a wet shirt. Just put it on.”

“Won’t you be cold?”

“I grew up in Winterfell,” Robb smirks. “I think I can handle King’s Landing.”

Theon knows he’s smiling back for real as he takes the jacket, and given that he hasn’t had that many reasons to since he left Pyke a couple of years ago, it’s - well, it’s not a bad feeling. He could get used to it.

“Why, I even brought a true knight in shining armor on this ship, didn’t I?”

“Let’s not exaggerate,” Robb replies, flushing, and damn but now that he took off that jacket Theon can see how nicely toned he is under his t-shirt, which adding to the fact that Robb Stark is pretty damned attractive in the first place, isn’t making him regret having tried to flirt with him since he crashed on the boat’s floor.

“Well, thanks anyway. Guess I’ll just get rid of the shirt.”

Robb’s eyes go slightly wide just before he moves away his stare from Theon’s naked chest, and Theon decides that maybe he’s not going to stop flirting anytime soon. He shrugs on the jacket - it’s a bit large on him but then again Robb has larger shoulders - and smiles to himself again.

At least something is going right in the middle of this shitshow.

\--

\--

 _What in the seven hells is this shitshow_ , Davos Seaworth thinks as his poor river-sea vessel finds itself in front of an entire squadron of - ships. A floatilla, actually.

He wonders if there’s some kind of strike going on, but he’d know - never mind that he’s in the union, usually when it happens he gets a warning. He can hardly try to surpass them, they’re blocking the entire river, and he has the darned onion cargo to deliver in King’s Landing before midday - do these people know that someone still works for a living in darned Westeros?

He _really_ needs to get through. Especially since from what he’s gathered the onions he’s carrying are for a catering service that’s in charge of Stannis Baratheon’s last campaign event before the Iron Islands vote on whether they should leave the union. Baratheon wasn’t who Davos would have picked for the Socialist party head, certainly, given that he comes from a well-off family - Davos was hoping Mance Rayder would stop being an independent and finally run properly. But Mance didn’t and Baratheon won out and up until now he’s been a really pleasant surprise. Sure, he could be less conservative on some issues, and he’s kind of scary for how much he doesn’t want to come down to compromises, but he has a clear party line, he doesn’t fuck around, he always says things the way they are even if it means sounding rude and he hasn’t compromised on the basic party principles.

In short, Davos isn’t sorry that he’s going to vote for him at the next elections, and would _really_ like to not be the reason why the event’s schedule gets fucked up and the poor bastards at the catering lose their minds. Then again, the darned boats are somehow going forward, even if fairly slow - maybe he can just join them and hope that it doesn’t take them two blasted hours to let him pass.

Good thing that his boat is small and Sallador won’t go and tell him to wait.

“Sallador?” He goes next to the wheel where his second in command and only other crew member is. 

“Have you seen that?” Sallador asks, sounding as baffled as Davos is. “I mean, what the hell?”

“I know. Can we, like, surpass them slowly?”

“Sure. As long as you stop me if you see that I can’t pass.”

“Great. Let’s see if we can do it. I need to deliver this in time, damn it.”

The fact that they need to avoid hitting other boats - sure as hell he doesn’t want to get sued, he can barely make ends meet as it is - is why he just pays attention to the space they have and why Sallador does the same. When people on the darned boats wave and say hi he just waves back and tells Sallador to move forward - he doesn’t even pay attention to anything else.

That’s it, until he’s in the middle of them and sees that on the other side there’s a cruise ship covered in _IN_ signs. 

… _IN_?

“I told you countless times I never wanted to see you again, you _traitor_!”

Wait a moment. Isn’t that the voice of that absolute wanker who founded the IIIP and wants the Iron Islands to secede from the bloody Union?

Then he sees one of those ships throwing water at the cruise one with a hose.

Wait a bloody moment.

He stops the boat and looks around himself.

Oh, fuck him, he’s in a bloody floatilla where every goddamned ship is covered in _Pykexit_ signs.

And that wanker Balon Greyjoy is on the ship that just sprayed the other one. He guesses that whoever’s on there they actually would like the islands to stay in the Union, and while this entire thing looks like a complete fucking ridiculous shitstorm that has nothing to do with how you do politics for real, like hell Davos is going to stay in a group that wants a Union secession.

Especially since he’s currently among a bunch of wankers who hate Northerners so much that they want to put a restricting ban on how many of them can emigrate to the Islands should they choose to (why would they is beyond Davos’s imagination, but never mind), who want to close the frontiers to emigrants from Essos - which is fairly fucking hypocritical, given that two centuries ago they had colonies over there and exploited the shit out of them -, want to demolish the National Westeros Health Service and keep on blathering about how horrible taxes are when they don’t realize that paying taxes is a lot more convenient for _everyone_ and are in general the incarnation of his nightmares in such a way that if he had to choose between Greyjoy and Tywin Lannister he’d probably vote for Lannister.

Shit, he feels dirty just for having thought that.

Fuck this. It’s ten AM. He has to deliver by midday. He’s sure he has some time to make a stand here.

“Sallador.”

“Yes, boss?”

“Don’t call me boss. We need to get over there right the fuck now, so now _I_ am taking control because we need to be fast, you tell me if I’m getting too close and put on the fenders. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Davos goes back behind the wheel. He’s not going to stand in this bunch longer than he has to.

Obviously, people do notice when he goes into his attempt at slaloming in the middle of the bloody floatilla.

“Aren’t you with us, mate?” The guy asking him from the next boat over is most probably drunk. He also looks like Balon Greyjoy’s eldest son, if Davos doesn’t remember wrong.

“First, I’m actually _working_ here, differently from all of you,” he shouts, figuring that the more of them hear him, the faster they’ll let him get away. “Second, I come from Flea Bottom and your party policy would have turned me into a criminal had you been in charge twenty years ago. Third, I vote socialist, you bloody bastards. Now, _can I fucking pass_ or do I have to sink your ship to do it?”

\--

\--

“Dad, you have to _look_ at this!”

Stannis sighs - he doesn’t know how his daughter can be so enamored with bloody social media, she’s a smart girl, she used to read so much back in the day… well, all right, she also reads a lot to this day, but she’s also checking Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and whatever else all the time, and he just doesn’t get why people have to overshare that much -

But then again that’s why he has an entire team that deals with his own social media.

Stannis misses the times when politics could be done without _social media._

“What’s going on?” He asks. “If it’s about Balon Greyjoy’s ridiculous stint -”

“Well, yes, but this guy who was on the river for work ended up in the floatilla by accident and then he moved out of it and went with the _IN_ people and said that he votes for you!”

“Wait, what?”

“Here, someone took a video!”

Stannis stands up, leaves his folder with the speech he was drafting for the next time he tries to put Tywin Lannister in difficulty at the next Parliament hearing, and moves to where Shireen’s sitting. She turns her phone horizontal and presses play on a video that someone obviously shot from the river bank.

There’s a middle-aged guy on a river-sea vessel, dressed all in black and looking fairly angry at his surroundings - Stannis gets him - who also has to be in excellent shape, because he _climbs over the IN ship_ where Oberyn Martell and his ridiculous crowd are. Stannis thinks that countering Balon’s idiocy with more idiocy just makes everyone look like complete time-wasters, but the middle-aged man certainly didn’t look like a complete time-waster.

The man reaches the top of the cruise ship, goes towards Oberyn, tells him something as if he’s not some kind of celebrity, and then Oberyn smirks and hands him the microphone.

“First thing, you’re _all_ complete idiots - if you really care about hardworking men and women as you always say, then can’t you let them work instead of occupying the whole bloody river without even giving the unions a warning? Or _anyone_ a warning, same as people who strike do? Second thing, like hell I was going to stick with the lot of you just until I had time to get out, I wouldn’t vote for your stupid party if I had a gun pointed to my head. Have you bloody learned anything during the _winter of discontent_ as in those fifteen years when Aerys Targaryen was implementing your same policies?” Then he takes in a deep breath and Stannis almost wants to clap slowly - that was an _excellent_ speech. No frills, straight to the point. He likes this guy.

“Third, what is this even? Publicity stint? Advertising? What the fuck are you hoping to accomplish? I’ve voted Socialist my entire fucking life and I’d pick Tywin Lannister over you right now even if he played a dick move with promising the referendum in the first place. Okay, he plays dick moves in general because that’s how he works, but he’s still better than all of you. And if I hadn’t liked Baratheon up until now, I’d have started right this moment because it seems to me like he’s the only one who doesn’t think politics are a bloody circus. Good luck fixing your economy if your precious _Pykexit_ works and your GNP goes as low as Aerys Targaryen’s popularity when he got kicked out from his own bloody party. Also, good luck throwing immigrants out, I’m sure you’ll totally be better off for it. And with this I have to go to work, damn it.”

The video stops as the guy hands Oberyn back the megaphone.

A moment later, his phone rings, the landline does, and _every_ phone in the office does, as well.

Stannis has a feeling that his PR wants to tell him that they’ll try to get hold of the guy for official statements.

In other occasions, Stannis would have refused, but right now - right now he thinks he won’t.

\--

\--

“This is fucking hilarious. God, my father must be fuming.”

“Easy to say for you. Where are you even?”

“On the next bridge over taking pictures of course,” Jaime says, sounding fairly gleeful at the prospect of keeping on recording this spectacular fail.

Brienne, who was supposed to finally _meet officially the father of the guy she’s supposed to marry in two weeks_ who’s also - not for her luck - the more or less estranged son of _fucking Tywin Lannister_ , who took a vacation day especially for this and who’s currently stuck on the opposite riverbank a few hundred meters down the bridge where Jaime is because she was on a bus and the traffic was so congested that she had to get down, isn’t at all surprised that Jaime is actually relieving in this madness.

“This isn’t funny.”

“This is more than funny. Hey, my illustrious father will be so pissed at lunch that he’ll forget to be a complete jerk to you and he might even agree to let us have the small wedding without press, look at the bright side!”

The not so hilarious thing is that Jaime might actually be right, which says everything about the dysfunctionality of his family - then again, they met when she was ghostwriting speeches for his sister fresh out of university. She knows even too well what she’s getting into.

“If I get there in the first place.”

“Come on, I’ll wait for you on the bridge and then I can take the blame if we’re late. And look at it, there’s some other ships coming your way with _IN_ signs, you can ask for a ride!”

Fact is - there is actually one. It’s small, and there’s a redhead snatching pictures on it, along with a tall and dark-haired young man driving it.

“Hey,” Brienne calls, “I - uh. I have an engagement dinner. Can you two give me a ride until the next bridge over?”

The redhead photographer turns at her and smirks, motioning for the guy to come closer to the bank.

“Sure,” she says, “I’ll help a sister in need. Don’t worry about the signs, I put them on just to fuck with the IIIP people, I’m actually working for a newspaper. But you know, I couldn’t resist.”

“Thanks,” Brienne says, mounting on the ship.

And that’s when someone from the Pykexit floatilla moves closer to them and _sprays them with river water_ , damn, and that was her only nice pantsuit.

\--

\--

The cruise ship has floated down to the Red Keep by the time Tyrion Lannister stands up and grabs the megaphone.

Robb doesn’t know if he’s terrified or not - up until now they’ve been sprayed thrice, there’s been the guy who voted for Stannis who said in Robb’s opinion the most sensed things since this entire shitstorm started, his follower count is in the hundreds when until yesterday it was maybe fifty people, he’s seen Euron Greyjoy’s naked chest on the other boat too many times to count, and he thinks his eardrums are shattered because they might have one boat, but there’s a better sound system than Balon’s has if they put together every ship on their floatilla.

At least Theon’s had the decency of keeping his jacket closed, because the last thing he needs right now is the guy he’s sort of attracted to standing next to him with Robb’s jacket on and showing his naked chest, damn it.

“Tell me he doesn’t have a speech planned,” Robb groans as he tries to not drop his poor phone - it’s quite literally burning by now. He had to turn off Twitter notifications or any other notifications and he knows he has at least ten emails from his boss, but he’s honestly scared of reading them.

“He has it if _my_ father has one, too. And I have a feeling that he does.”

“This is going to be embarrassing, is it?”

“Very much. I think Oberyn has alcohol somewhere in this bloody ship.”

“Thank you, but I’m gonna have to cover this and talk to my boss before touching anything stronger than orange juice.”

“Why, didn’t your boss send you here?”

“No. I kind of did it myself to see if they’d consider hiring me for good.”

“Huh. Well, I can appreciate people with some initiative myself -”

“Lannister, you’re going to lose this time!”

“... And that’d be my father, _fuck_ .”

Robb turns his attention to the Pykexit flagship again - it managed to go close enough to the Red Keep’s bank.

“You can’t keep us in with your false bribes! Our people know!”

“Balon, didn’t you even realize that he’s gotten elected for the last fifteen years with _the entire continent knowing that he bribes other people_ ?”

That was Tyrion Lannister.

“Never mind that your bloody islands already voted for him last year, or do I have to remind you that _you_ didn’t even get a quarter of the votes?”

“Liar!” Theon groans the moment he hears the reply. That’s not Balon - that’s the other brother. Who, Euron?

“Not the psychopath,” Theon says under his breath. “Now he’s going to try and board the boat.”

“What?!”

“Just you wait.”

“Euron, do I have to remind you that your party only got to an overall twenty-five per cent just because there are dumbasses who vote for _you_ even if they come from completely different places and are bitter old assholes just like your brother?”

Robb does manage to take a picture of Euron - who’s shirtless and wearing an eyepatch, fuck’s sake - staring at Tyrion in a frankly menacing way before -

Before he runs and actually jumps into the fucking river and _swims towards them_ ?

“Is he bloody insane?”

“Yes, and he also thinks that the Drowned God blessed him, so he couldn’t get sick from drinking that blasted water.”

“ _Seriously_ ?”

“Why did you think I hightailed out of Pyke and went to a fashion academy in King’s Landing, Stark?”

That… sounds like a fairly sensible option, given what Robb is seeing.

He doesn’t look at the fifteenth email from work that he has just received and opens his Twitter account again. The notifications are off the charts. He’s sure he has at least one thousand retweets last he checked. 

He smiles slightly to himself and figures he might just go for it entirely.

\--

\--

“ _What_ ?”

“Yes,” Ygritte screams into the phone - the line is disturbed and the music blaring from Oberyn Martell’s boat along with Balon’s screams are making the entire conversation hard to understand. “I just gave a ride to Jaime Lannister’s fiance, he jumped on our boat from the bridge he was waiting for her on, he insulted very creatively whichever son of Greyjoy’s that dared ruin his fiance’s pantsuit since they were supposed to _have lunch with his father_ -”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Jon, you’re on the _flagship of a floatilla covered in fucking Pykexit signs_ , do you think I have enough imagination to come up with that story?”

“Okay, fine, that’s - that’s true. So, then what happened?”

“They drenched him in water, too, at which he said that it doesn’t matter because he knows he looks dashing when he’s wet and he knows she appreciated it. She about clocked him in the side and he seemed to enjoy that a bit too much, then he asked them if they agreed with their father about women needing to stay in the kitchen or the bedroom before gleefully informing them that his future wife currently earns more than he does and that he’s always glad to let her top, then they made out in front of those idiots. She was red in the face but she didn’t stop him at any point, and they were both drenched in water.”

“What the - what does Jaime Lannister even do right now?”

“He says he’s writing a book about his time when he was in Aerys Targaryen’s security detail when he was barely seventeen years ago. Apparently being in a secret relationship with his sister’s former ghostwriter of political speeches, who right now is the head of _Stannis_ ’s campaign, was what pushed him to say fuck it to the family business and follow his brother out of it. Meanwhile she was on the phone with her HQ and they’re trying to track down the guy who made that amazing and on point speech on Oberyn’s boat before.”

“And now?”

“Oh, I left them at the Red Keep. He says that his father can handle having lunch with them if they’re wet, at this point.”

“Can I write all of that down?”

“Why do you think I’m calling you and not Aliser Thorne, who’d have loved to hear all of that gossip?”

“Because you’re my girlfriend?”

“I wouldn’t be your girlfriend if I thought you were shitty at your job. Please, proceed to piss off anyone involved in this story when you write it. Except the _Remain_ people. They were cool. And the dude who voted for Stannis. He was the best.”

“Duly noted. Don’t worry, I have absolutely nothing nice to say about my hosts.”

He so does _not_ . 

“And who were you talking to?” Balon suddenly asks him, noticing him for the first time since this morning - like hell he has answered one of his questions anyway.

“The magazine’s photographer? Who also happens to be my girlfriend. She’s around, we need to keep in contact. Some of us actually want to work.”

“Fuck, not just the northern bastard, now he also has to sound like that socialist wanker from before.”

 _Fuck this noise_ , Jon thinks, _at the next elections I’m not doing the radical vote and I’m picking Stannis_ .

\--

\--

“Sir?”

Podrick Payne should have never accepted to intern for Lannister. Oh, sure, _internship at the Seven’s Union Parliament_ sounded like a great prospect especially for a student fresh out of university, but Tywin Lannister is terrifying on his own on a normal day.

On a day like _this_ , the moment the man looks at Pod, he feels like spontaneously combusting.

“ _Yes_ ?”

“I, uh, have the news round-up. About the situation. Taena gave it to me -”

“Get it over with.”

“Uh. The Remain boat is still not moving. Balon Greyjoy wanted to get down from his and come up here to give you officially the requests from the Ironborn fishermen, but - he kind of physically can’t. Since the Remain boat is in its way.”

He can hear speakers blaring _Should I Stay or Should I Go_ even up here.

Tywin looks murderous. “Then?”

“Your son - Tyrion, I mean - he has talked to some journalist and told him to publish that he hopes you don’t lose this round, because no one wants the Union to fail except Balon, but at the same time he hopes you’re enjoying the entertainment. Mr. Jaime and his fiancé are waiting for you at the Red Keep’s mess hall - they excuse themselves for the wet clothes in advance but - as your son put it, _it was the Pykexiters’ bloody fault_ . #Pykexit, as in, hashtag Pykexit, is actually Westeros’s first trending topic. Since a few hours, at least.”

“And?”

Pod breathes in. “Uh. This isn’t official, but - sounds like - well, they asked Stannis Baratheon what he thought of the guy’s speech in his favor. I mean, the one who changed fleets. Even if to be honest the _Remain_ crowd wasn’t a fleet. Anyway, uh, he said, I quote, _I haven’t heard anyone making so much sense about politics in a long time and I wish there was someone like that in the party, I would make them VP_ .”

“He said that.”

“Literally. Sir.”

“All right. _Leave_ .”

Podrick Payne is _not_ looking forward to see how Tywin Lannister gets when he’s really angry, so he just nods and runs out of the room.

Regardless of whether he keeps his job, next elections he’s definitely voting for Stannis, if only because he looks like he’d be a least emotionally traumatizing boss.

\--

\--

Robb’s inbox is pretty much exploding.

“Afraid of looking at them?” Theon asks, looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah. Either I got promoted for real or they just fired me.”

“No in-between?”

“I doubt it. That said, are _you_ okay? Because your uncle -”

“Eh, not any news, but at least he’s in jail and they made themselves look like the idiots they actually are, I think I can deal with a black eye for a week or two.”

Robb shakes his head as he looks at Theon - shit, black eye. That’s an understatement - considering how hard Euron hit him when he boarded the ship before it’s a miracle that he didn’t break any bone, good thing that Arianne dragged him off Theon a second later.

“ _Not any news_?”

“Too bad that my dad thinks that if you can’t take a few hits from relatives you aren’t a real man. But whatever, it was years ago and I couldn’t wait to leave for a reason. So, are you looking at that inbox at any point soon?”

“Fine, _fine_ ,” Robb says - after all, he doesn’t have to check the situation anymore, it’s winding down at this point.

He opens his inbox.

“Ah, fuck,” he says under his breath as he reads from the bottom to the top.

“Bad news?”

“Er, they wanted me to stop after the first two. Apparently your father, uh, paid some generous money so that we _wouldn’t_ give him bad press.”

“So I accidentally killed your career instead of kickstarting it when I said you could get on board?”

Robb has to laugh - fine, it was a little funny, all right?

“Er. Well. Wasn’t much of a career to begin with -” He starts, and then his phone starts ringing. And wait, it’s _Jon_?

“Jon? Did you survive Greyjoy’s flaghship?”

“You don’t even want to know,” Jon sighs. “I escaped when that asshole Euron went and jumped into the river, it’s not as if anyone was answering questions. Anyway, my boss is here.”

“Who, the infamous director Mormont?”

“Yeah, and he wants to speak to you. Wait a moment.”

Robb swallows as the phone obviously changes hands.

“Robb Stark?” Someone asks on the other side of the line - presumably director Mormont.

“Yes, sir.”

“How formal. Well, at least you have manners. So, let’s cut it to the heart of the matter - I hear that my illustrious colleague Baelish has just let you go, hasn’t he?”

“He might have. Apparently I, uh, gave bad press to one of our main sponsors. I didn’t even know he was a sponsor.”

“Well, I believe in the free press,” Mormont says. “And it looks to me like you’ve done an outstanding job today. You saw your opportunity, you managed to get into the thick of it and gave a fairly appropriate report keeping it updated all along, and that’s more work ethics that half of my staff has. Your brother is not included, of course.”

“Why, thank you, but I just was - doing my job.”

“And you’re obviously wasted on that joke of an online rag. Would you consider joining your brother at my magazine instead?”

For a moment Robb feels like he could faint - damn, _The Wall_ is a lot classier magazine, never mind that it’s a _real_ magazine that actually gets printed on paper, and he was frankly fed up with making up quizzes about which one of Margaery Tyrell’s evening dresses is more suited to the person taking the test when they didn’t know what to make him do.

“If - well, of course, I’d be honored, I don’t know what to say -”

“Can you come into the office with your brother next week so we can finalize it?”

“Oh - sure. Sure, of course I could.”

“Then good, I’ll see you next week. And take pride on your _livetweeting_ , for the second-class rate journalism Baelish forces people to do it was masterful.”

Then he closes the call and Robb just stares at the phone for a long, long moment.

“I gather you lost your job but might have found another?” Theon asks a moment later.

“You gather right,” Robb smiles. “And in a better work environment.”

“Nice. Sounds like at least I didn’t kill your career.”

“No, you might actually have saved it. It’s a way better magazine, I’d get to work with my brother and I know that they pay them a lot better.”

“Glad to have helped out then,” Theon grins, and damn but he really has a lovely smile and he’s still wearing Robb’s jacket and Robb _really_ likes him, okay?

He breathes in and puts a hand on Theon’s arm, just touching. “And what if I wanted to buy you a drink to say thanks?”

Theon’s eyes go slightly wide before realization dawns - thankfully he seems to have understood at once where Robb’s headed here. That said, maybe he should specify.

“Unless I read the signs wrong, because it seemed like you might have said yes, but if you don’t want to -”

“Robb Stark,” Theon cuts him, “I think that while I’d usually never accept to be seen in public with a black eye, no proper shirt, a jacket that doesn’t fit and smelling of fucking Blackwater, I might just make an exception right now.”

“Would you?”

Theon moves slightly closer. “Let’s say that when I boarded this ship I did it just for a question of principle, but meeting you definitely was a perk.”

“Then I’ll totally show you my favorite bar. Don’t worry, they don’t mind if you smell of polluted river.”

Theon breaks out laughing at that and Robb kind of really wants to kiss him because that’s a gorgeous smile and it makes him look so radiant, how is anyone supposed to resist -

“Hey,” Robb tells him, glancing at his left, “your father’s flagship is right in front of us.”

“ _Is it_ ,” Theon says, looking the same way. “Does this have anything to do with the drinks you’ll buy me?”

“Given what your father thought of Lannister approving same-sex marriage last year, if you’re amenable and I’m not rushing things too much -”

“Robb?”

“Yes?”

“You’re a genius,” Theon says, still smiling that frankly blinding grin, and then his hands are on Robb’s shoulders and when he kisses him right over the rail, Robb is wholly ready for it.

\--

 

 

End.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which referendum results are in. Spoilers: it's a clusterfuck, but not an entirely unsolvable one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo. Hi. We didn't think that we'd do a follow-up to this in light of how it ended up, buuuut last week I was taking prompts on tumblr and someone went like 'well I think we are all wondering what happened with the #pykexit'. And since it seemed that it still was somehow funny all things considered I figured hey, why not. So we discussed a plot and everything and I sat down to start it *two days* after results came in.
> 
> Spoilers: 90% of what I thought I'd make happen in this ACTUALLY HAPPENED IRL. At that point we just basically said fuck it, so here you go, this is what happened after #pykexit. Any reference to real people or facts is absolutely meant to be.
> 
> Therefore: the fanarts/formatting/maps/graphs are electricalice's, Balon's speech is... well... you'll see when you get there, basically I only own what crack politicians didn't give me already. More details in the ending notes.
> 
> Last thing: back when we conceived the first one, we were admittedly aiming for some good sane satire that might give people a laugh or two because the brexit floatilla was just that fucking stupid. For this one... well, I think it's obvious we were hoping for the UK to remain and we're both abysmally sorry about the results and how farcical the entire thing was. So we didn't exactly follow *that* same route because really, no, but as we're still somehow hoping that this gets solved decently we figured that at least we'd solve it decently in this verse, so. Hopefully it's still fun :')

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Robb says, staring at the screen in front of him.

“It can’t be,” Jon echoes.

“We all had too much coffee and this is a collective hallucination. Or Pyp and Grenn spiked our coffee,” Ygritte says, not moving her eyes from the screen with the definitive results for the _Pykexit_ referendum in front of her. “Guys, admit it, you spiked our coffee.”

“We drank the same coffee as you,” Pyp says, sounding outraged. “We _didn’t_.”

“What’s going on?” Director Mormont asks, coming into the room. “We have the definitive results, don’t we?”

“So it seems,” Robb says. “So it seems. But - do you see what we see, sir?”

“What’s so strange about them? Surely they didn’t vote to leave, did - _oh, shit._ ”

“Guys, Pykexit is _still_ trending like there’s no tomorrow,” Sam informs them from his so-dubbed social media kingdom - he has four screens in front of him checking fifteen different social networks and news sources.

“I could imagine that,” Robb sighs, “but they didn’t _really_ leave, did they?”

A moment later, his phone rings. “Uh, that’d be Theon. I imagine he’s seen the reports, too.”

“Answer that, I’m really curious of what your _local_ boyfriend has to say,” Ygritte says.

“Yeah, nothing good probably.” He takes the call. “Hey, I’ve just seen -”

“ _How in the name of everything that’s holy and unholy can I come from a country where half of the voting population is completely fucking bonkers_?” Theon shouts in exchange, and Robb can hear that he’s halfway drunk.

He can entirely guess why.

\--

\--

“All right,” Director Mormont says after they all had another round of coffee and have looked at the results some more, “we need a plan here. Next issue is _all_ covering this mess. Understood?”

Everyone in the room nods - no one would be dumb enough to antagonize Jeor Mormont when he hasn’t slept for twenty-six hours and has more coffee in his system than most of them put together, which is saying a lot.

“Stark, given that you’re good at _covering_ , you’re going to the parliamentary hearing the moment it’s held. Snow, you’re on the socialists - you cover Stannis’s side and see what the hell’s the deal with his new VP and find out if they’re for real or it’s all publicity. Ygritte, you’re taking pictures at the parliamentary hearing. Tarly, you’re taking pictures at the Socialist congress or whatever it’s the next press conference that they hold. Tris, you’re taking a plane to Pyke right now or as soon as you find one and you cover me what’s going on with bloody Greyjoy and his party and if you interview a few voters here and there no one will mind. Pyp, Grenn, you mind the social networks while Tarly’s off taking pictures. For now we can all go to bed for the next four hours or so, this next week is going to be hard on all of us. Got it?”

 _Everyone_ gets it.

\--

\--

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, and did I say _fuck_?”

“Theon?”

“Ah, you’re here,” Theon sighs, standing up from the sofa as Robb comes into his living room. He had said that he’d crash here tonight rather than going back home, but if he has to be at the parliament for the entire next week it makes no sense that he’d take a two-hour commute now, would it?

“And you were swearing in a dark room on your own.”

“Yeah, well, the assholes I happen to share a citizenship with managed to fucking defy all odds and _not decide any fucking thing_ , which I suppose is going to cause a massive shitstorm, and if they re-do it and _leave_ wins where the fuck does that leave me? I mean, I’m graduating in two months, I don’t have a job yet and I can hardly apply for study visas, and by the time I’m done and looking for a job they will have deserved getting kicked out in the most horrible way -”

Robb takes his arm and sits on the sofa, dragging Theon down with him - he doesn’t even attempt to not go with it. He’s too tired.

“Now, you listen to me for a moment. First, it means that the other half of your country is made of smart people. Second, I’m sure you’d find some work quickly, you’re good at what you do.”

“Yeah, means nothing -”

“Third, if everything else fails, well, I know we’ve been dating for two weeks and it might be somewhat excessive, but there’s engagement visas, you know.”

 _What_?

Theon looks at him straight for the first time since he came in. “Have you just said -”

“I’d be _entirely_ amenable if it meant keeping on dating you, but don’t worry, it’s not happening for now. And since tomorrow I have to go stalk Lannister way too early in the morning, I’d go to bed if you don’t mind. That also means that since it’s your bed, I’d expect you to join me.”

Theon can’t help it - he has to smile in spite of everything and he gives Robb a tired nod as they stand up. “Fine, you win. But I’m holding you up to that engagement visa promise.”

“Good, because I’d be more than up for keeping it.”

Shit, and the most ridiculous thing is that he obviously means it.

Theon doesn’t know how he lucked out like _this_ , but he’s not going to complain.

\--

08.00 AM: Pyke’s stock market opens losing ten points. Absolutely _no one_ could have predicted it, except about every halfway decent economist in Westeros.

08.05 AM: King’s Landing’s stock market opens with a seven points loss. Riverrun, Sunspear, Lannisport and Highgarden all open with a five points loss. Storm’s end has a two points loss. Winterfell is the only stock market in all of Westeros opening at a flat zero per cent. We’re sure Balon Greyjoy is thrilled to hear that.

08.10 AM: the Pyke dollar loses the most staggering amount of value against the Westeros dollar since the last six months of Aerys Targaryen’s government. People are on queue outside banks to buy Westeros dollars. This absolutely will not make the situation any worse, will it?

09.05 AM: Balon Greyjoy finally breaks silence and issues a statement on the referendum result. The statement reads, _the people of our islands have taken their stand and we’ll discuss with Lannister, but he can forget to kick us out based on this result_. When asked what he means, given that he was the main leave supporter, he replied that he wouldn’t leave on PM Lannister’s terms. The staff here at Westeros Financial admits to being fairly perplexed and to needing a lot of alcohol, if this is what we are in for.

\--

“Our father’s a bloody moron,” Tyrion declares, taking a last drink from his almost-empty wine bottle and entirely not moving from his very comfortable place on Jaime’s sofa. “He hasn’t issued a statement yet, has he gone insane?”

Jaime shrugs and drinks from his own bottle. “Not as much of a bloody moron as Greyjoy. Have you heard him? Now like hell he wants to leave, after seeing the effects. What a complete wanker. If he ruins my wedding indirectly I’ll kill him myself.”

“It’s in _two weeks_ , calm down.”

“And I’m marrying the head of Stannis’s staff, do you think that there’ll be time for marriage if this entire mess doesn’t blow down?”

“True, but it’s _Stannis_. He’d give her time off for a bloody wedding.”

“... That was an excellent point. Shit, I’m drunk. Hasn’t Father said anything yet?”

“Nope. He should resign, if you ask me -”

“Are you insane? He loves that seat more than he loves about anything in the world. He’s never going to _resign_.”

“Right. Good point.”

“Fuck this, I’ll go get more wine - this is going to be my early stag party.”

“Stag parties are just before the weddings, usually, you know that?”

“Oh, shut up, I need an excuse to be drinking at nine in the morning and they’re overrated anyway.”

Tyrion can’t find any fault with that reasoning and accepts gladly a second bottle when Jaime hands it over.

\--

10.00 AM: PM Lannister finally releases a statement. _I am willing to conduct negotiations over the referendum’s results but I will refuse to talk to Balon Greyjoy for the moment on account of him presuming what I can or cannot forget to do_. That’s actually fairly reasonable, all things considered.

10.10 AM: The Westeros dollar is in free fall - the Essos dollar is gaining ground on it for the first time since the last Lannisport colony gained independence. No one is feeling particularly sad about it, truth to be told, even if when reasoning seriously on the matter, the entire staff is starting to feel honestly scared by this turn of events.

10.20 AM: Balon Greyjoy reportedly flying to King’s Landing for the afternoon’s parliamentary hearing. Stannis Baratheon has announced a WSP emergency meeting followed by a live conference for later tonight. Hopefully someone will speak some sense.

10.30 AM: Harlaw PM Rodrik Harlaw officially states the following. _Given that Harlaw voted against separation from the Iron Islands in order to stay in the Seven’s Union last year, if Pykexit is the eventual outcome, we are ready to vote on it again and eventually leave. We are Westerosi and we would like to stay Westerosi, regardless of what the IIIP preaches._

10.40 AM: Pyke dollar in complete freefall. Excuse us but we are so baffled about this turn of events that we have no clue of what we should even say - or better, we could have predicted it, but we really didn’t want to believe it would be happening for real.

\--

“You’re shitting me,” Grenn says. “You _really_ are shitting me.”

“I’m not! You can check it on YouTube, it’s a minor channel in Saltcliffe but I was there, I heard him say it.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Grenn sighs, opening the browser.

“What’s up?” Pyp asks him, trying to do a selection of reaction tweets to put on the magazine’s website later - surely he can put something together while they wait for either Robb or Jon to send in their piece. Robb first, probably - the hearing’s in minutes, while Stannis’s press conference is until later this evening.

“Tris says that Greyjoy’s openly admitted that he was harsh in promising to use the money they allegedly pay the Union to boost the local fishing industry on local television.”

“ _What_?”

“Yep. Some local program called _Good Morning Saltcliffe_. On some local channel. Named _Independent Saltcliffe Television_.”

“Come on, he heard wrong.”

“Let’s see. Hold on, Tris, it’s up. Wow, look at the amount of viewings.”

Grenn presses play. A nice-looking sensibly dressed woman is interviewing Greyjoy, whose black suit with golden tie seems fairly out of place all things considered.

“Can you guarantee that the money you promised the Islands would save, should they leave, will effectively go to the national Fishermen’s fund?” She asks.

Greyjoy stares at her as if he wants to murder her, then plasters a smile on his face.

“No, I can’t, and I’ve never made that claim,” he says, with such a straight face Grenn almost envies him.

“What?” Pyp can’t help shouting. “But it was _on bus advertisements_!”

“Yeah, I think he has somehow decided to forget that,” Grenn says. “Right. Tris, okay, sorry, it was legit. Do I forward the link to Robb so he can use it later in case? Yeah. Sure. You have the interviews and the article but you can’t put it together properly now? Okay, send the files over, Pyp’s gonna format it and publish.”

“Hey, why _me_?”

“Because you’re the one who can edit videos, not me. I wasn’t first in the social media traineeship.”

“You were third?”

“You still were first.”

Pyp sighs deeply and goes to check on the Dropbox folder they use to share video interviews waiting for Tris to upload the interviews and to send his article.

This is going to be a very long week.

\--

\--

“I can’t believe he’s late for this hearing,” Ygritte groans as she checks her camera settings for the umpteenth time. Then again, she has nothing else to do - at least Robb can check the internet. He has the laptop turned on and his Word document open so he can take notes as soon as Greyjoy shows up. He should have done that twenty minutes ago - Lannister is fuming, not that Robb isn’t feeling him.

God, he’s _empathizing with Tywin Lannister_ , what is the world coming to.

“Is he really that much of an idiot,” Robb huffs, and then finally the son of a bitch walks inside the room without any hurry whatsoever.

Dressed with a black suit and _golden_ tie and handkerchief.

“Wow,” Robb whispers, “Theon is probably in pain now.”

“Because his father’s a joke?”

“Because of that color arrangement.”

“... True. It’s atrocious. He really has no taste for anything, does he?”

“No,” Robb agrees. “Okay, he’s stopped apologizing for being late, let’s listen to whatever he has to say.”

Greyjoy goes to his seat, his back straight and with the face of someone who’s going to try and bluff his way out of this mess.

Robb takes a very deep breath.

Then the man starts talking.

“Isn’t it funny?” He starts. “When I won a seat ten years ago and I said that I wanted to lead a campaign to get the Islands to leave the Seven’s Union, you all laughed at me – well I have to say, you’re not laughing now, are you? Of course, we didn’t reach the target yet, but you’re just in denial. The union as a political project is in denial that half of us want to leave. You’re in denial that your stock market is crashing. You’re in denial that we have had the power to make you tremble!”

“He’s not saying _that_ ,” Ygritte groans.

“I’m afraid he is.” Robb takes notes down desperately - seven hells, that was just so completely fucking missing the point that he can barely believe it. Didn’t he notice that _his own currency_ is at its lowest? Sure as fuck less than the Westeros dollar.

“What happened at the referendum was a remarkable result and for the entire continent’s politics! What our people that your Union has oppressed since we were let in have done was rejecting your false imperialism, Lannister!”

“Everyone around him is literally facepalming,” Ygritte whispers. “I’m definitely taking pictures of all of them.”

“Please fucking do. Is he even serious? Lannister looks like he wants to murder him.”

“Well, _why wouldn’t he_ , I can share that sentiment,” Ygritte agrees before zooming on the face of some poor person from Dorne who is sadly sitting behind Balon and looking like they’d like to commit harakiri as soon as possible.

“We want to be an independent, self-governing, normal nation. That is what half of us have done and that’s what we will do if we vote again, and we will, unless you understand that you need us more than we need you!”

“He’s fucking bonkers.” Robb can’t believe that this is the way he’s spinning it.

“The question is what do we do next? Of course, we shall go vote again for a definitive result and then we’ll take all the necessary decisions.”

“Ah, _now_ he’s backtracking.” Ygritte sounds livid. “And he had the gall to insult Jon on that ship, I can’t even -”

“ _What_ did he do?”

“Ah, right, he probably hasn’t told you. I’ll brief you later.”

Robb goes back to his notes and types down frantically.

“What I’d like to see is a grownup and sensible attitude to how we negotiate a different relationship if our people decide to eventually leave, and even if they didn’t, I think a clear message has been sent.. I know that virtually none of you have never done a proper job in your lives, or worked in business, or worked in trade, or indeed ever created a job. But listen, just listen -”

A few people start booing, not that Robb is surprised about that.

“I can’t believe this,” Robb says, feeling dread rise up his spine. “He _didn’t_ say that.”

“He just did.”

“Does he even know that there’s Ray Maribald behind him? Gods, that guy _founded the hugest charity for war veterans in Westeros after he fought two wars and became a conscientious objector_ , I can’t believe it.”

“Of course he doesn’t.” Ygritte shrugs. “Does he ever have a bloody clue of anything?”

“Order!” Barristan Selmy, the President of the Parliament says, even if he doesn’t sound too happy about the prospect. “Ladies, gentlemen, I am wondering myself why Mr. Greyjoy is even here, given how much he despises this institution, but please, let’s hear what he has to say, shall we?”

“ _Oh my fucking_ \- that was glorious.” Ygritte is trying not to burst out in laughter. Robb bites down on his tongue, agreeing fully with that. 

“Something has happened here,” Greyjoy starts again. ”We should just have clear some sensible economics – my country and your countries, between us we do an enormous amount of business in goods and services. That trade is mutually beneficial to both of us, that trade matters. If we choose to leave and you reject any idea of a sensible trade deal the consequences would be far worse for you than it would be for us.”

“He didn’t say that,” Robb groans.

And then, _the entire room except IIIP party members erupts in laughter_.

At the exact same time, Robb’s phone beeps. He dares taking it out - it’s Theon texting him.

_THE ISLANDS ONLY EXPORT BLOODY FISH AND IRON AND NOTHING GROWS ON THERE EXCEPT MAYBE FUCKING TURNIPS, WHEN WE’RE LUCKY. IS HE FUCKING INSANE? WHY AM I RELATED TO THAT PIECE OF SHIT? I NEED TO DRINK SOME MORE GDI_

“Your boyfriend has a point,” Ygritte says over the rest of the room booing and laughing all over again. Sure he does. Robb will try to console him later tonight.

Barristan Selmy stands up again. “Order, ladies and gentlemen, order! I understand that you’re getting emotional. But please, let’s be better than this. You’re acting the way IIIP usually acts in these chambers after all.”

Robb wants to erupt in laughter at this point. Damn, he might not have agreed with Selmy on everything he ever said, but that was just - that was just so good he doesn’t even have words for describing its magnificence. And Greyjoy is angry now. Good.

“You’re quite right Mr. Selmy,” Greyjoy says, barely containing his irritation. “IIIP used to protest against the establishment and now the establishment protests against IIIP! And as I was saying before, even no deal would be better for the Iron Islands than the current rotten one that we’ve got. Why shouldn’t we be pragmatic, sensible and realistic and agree on cutting us a sensible tariff-free deal in case we do in fact leave, and then recognise that however the outcome turns out to be, the Iron Islands will be your best friends in the world, that we will trade with you, cooperate with you! And now I shall expect our illustrious _Prime Minister_ to let me know his answer.”

Lannister isn’t fuming, Robb thinks.

Lannister is _beyond_ fuming.

\--

\--

\--

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Jon says, shaking his head as he looks at the e-mail Robb just sent him with the notes from the parliamentary hearing.

“Did he actually even _say that_? I can’t believe it. I so cannot believe it.”

“Well, look at the positive side.”

“Which would be?”

“We just dodged a bullet. Imagine if we had to go to the Parliament and Robb and Ygritte got the press conference.”

“... You have a point or a thousand,” Sam agrees at once. He has the camera ready, they’re all sitting waiting for Baratheon to come out and at least the atmosphere’s not too tense - the room is small, there’s no decor other than the party banner on the wall, and it’s definitely an easier job than Robb’s. Baratheon also said he’d do a private interview with one of the journalists - _the one who asks the least stupid questions_ , he said backstage - and Jon kind of hopes that they win it if only because it would definitely look good on his CV and Baratheon looks like the kind of person who does sensible interviews.

He looks at the clock - it’s 9 PM sharp, and it should start now -

Well, damn. The door opens at once and Baratheon shows up, trailed by Davos Seaworth-the-infamous-socialist-voter-from-the-floatilla-day. Baratheon actually did meet him a day after, and the next day he didn’t go back on his words and actually made the guy VP. Which he apparently could do because the man had a party membership and being his VP didn’t imply he had to be MP.

Baratheon is dressed impeccably as usual, with a sensible grey suit and red tie along with a white shirt. Seaworth instead is dressed - well. Okay, not the same as he would when going to work, but the heavy pants and jacket were definitely bought as casual clothes to wear during winter, not as formal ones. That said, he’s not looking like he’s taking it as a joke - the clothing is used but not worn out, and the green sweater he has under his gray and red jacket does make a decent picture, all things considered.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Baratheon starts. “We shall be taking questions for the next fifteen minutes, but before, I should like to anticipate some of them and release my statement about Balon Greyjoy’s parliamentary speech today. As in, I find it utterly and completely ridiculous that he should already ask for facilitations should his country decide to secede, and while I am loathe to agree with PM Lannister on quite everything, I can only agree with him if he doesn’t want to discuss the situation with Greyjoy and I will not try to use this to my political advantage. You may ask now.”

Everyone starts talking at once. A staff member calms them down, and then the questions start.

_Can you explain us why you chose a VP so hastily when you didn’t want one up until this point?_

_Mr. Seaworth, is it true that you have been arrested during strikes under the Aerys Targaryen government?_

_Mr. Baratheon, your wife filed for divorce a few weeks ago but you wouldn’t comment until now - care to do so?_

“Good gods,” Sam whispers, “are these people writing for actual newspapers or gossip magazines?”

“Someone has no clue of what we’re even discussing here,” Jon agrees as those two try to deflate some more dumb questions.

Then he raises his hand.

“Yes, Mr. -?” Baratheon asks, seeing him in second row. “You may stand.”

“Snow. Jon Snow, from _The Wall_. I was wondering, you said you will support PM Lannister when it comes to asking for a better representative than MP Greyjoy. But could you please explain to our readers what is your plan in the long run and how does the Socialist party plan to act in the wake of this result? Of course, your VP is welcome to chime in.”

Baratheon sends him a grateful look. Seaworth gives him an approving look, good thing that.

Then Baratheon just stares at him with full intention.

“We will wait until the islands find a better spokesperson than MP Greyjoy, for sure, and should Harlaw want to talk to us as a separate entity we shall support it entirely. Once that happens, though, hoping that they are reasonable about the matter, we _will_ support them if they decided to vote again, and our local branch will do its best to campaign truthfully. However, if PM Lannister decides that we should vote again before doing so, I promise that I will hold another referendum.”

“Indeed,” Seaworth chimes in, “but since it’s frankly ridiculous that such an important decision should be left up to such a small margin, it will only be valid if at least seventy per cent of the population goes to vote and at least sixty percent of them agrees on the result. Anything less would be an insult.”

Jon is entirely in agreement. Also, Stannis turns and looks at Seaworth approvingly.

Wait, are his cheeks _maybe_ slightly redder?

He decides he’s too tired and it’s a trick of the light.

“Thank you very much,” he says, before sitting down again.

Twenty minutes later, someone from the staff tells him that as he asked the only smart question, he and Sam are welcome to interview both Baratheon and Seaworth privately later.

\--

\--

\--

“What - _who_ has just gone to Harlaw, again?” Grenn is fairly sure that Sam just spoke a bunch of total gibberish to him, but it might be that checking all the social media for the last few days without sleep might have just gotten to him, at last.

“Kraznys mo Nakloz,” Sam says again, slower.

“ _Who_?” Grenn can’t honestly remember who the fuck is this guy supposed to be.

“That dumb politician from the Free Cities? They’re having primaries right now, he’s that guy from Volantis who keeps on saying that Westeros is the absolute worst in existence and that he’s campaigning to make the Free Cities great again, all nine of them?”

“The fuck, when was it that they were great according to him? It’s like, the one area in between Westeros and Essos where there isn’t a recession going on!” Pyp chimes in.

“Well, apparently he has, like, a two percent approval ratio. But satirists love him because he’s just that much of an idiot, there’s an entire pamphlet in Volantis about how ridiculous his campaign is. Anyway,” Sam adds, sipping from his coffee, “he’s gone to Harlaw.”

“ _Why_?”

“To open a golf course. He apparently owns an entire business of golf courses in Essos and decided he should expand. He’s rich, what can we say.”

“According to the internet, because he exploits his workers,” Pyp adds.

“I’m not surprise. Anyway, Tris just said he landed in Harlaw saying that they should keep on like that and take back their country from the horrid Westerosi oppressors.”

Grenn looks that up because come on, it can’t be that bad, can it -

“Oh, fuck,” he breathes. “It’s really. He really said that.”

“Yes.”

“In _Harlaw_.”

“Yes.”

“ _Where they all voted to stay_?”

“Apparently.”

“We’re not paid nowhere high enough for this,” Grenn declares.

No one disagrees.

\--

\--

“Robb, fuck’s - if your brother has to call you at four AM can his ringtone not be the Imperial march?”

“Argh, sorry, but Mormont said to keep it open if there were job news,” Robb says apologetically before grabbing the phone and taking the call. “Jon? Yeah, yeah, well, I’m awake now. What’s the - _what_? No. No, you’re shitting me. Okay, okay, I’m coming in. I’ll be there in twenty. Yeah, thanks, two cups.”

“What? You have to go in?”

“Well, given that your father has just stepped down as IIIP leader…”

“What?”

“Yeah. Apparently he was locked in consultations with everyone else today and he resigned. Not from MP, though.”

“ _What_? Sorry, he didn’t - but he wanted to leave - yeah, as if. What a fucking hypocrite. And who’s the substitute?”

“They have no bloody clue.”

“They don’t have one.”

“Victarion apparently refused straight-up. Euron’s still in jail for punching you in the face. Aeron’s not really even running. Seems like they’re in a conundrum of the worst kind.”

“Fuck. Yeah, okay, I can see why you’d go. Just tell them that they aren’t allowed to steal you over when I graduate.”

“Oh, Mormont already knows I need that day free. I’ll be back as soon as this dies down.”

“Yeah, if they don’t implode first.”

Robb laughs, because that’s an excellent point, and then gets out of bed and puts on yesterday’s clothing that he had left lying on a seat - Theon’s gone back to sleep by the time he’s done. He sends a longing look at the bed and then he steps out - at least after this, Mormont will have to hire him and Jon for good. Traineeship his ass.

\--

\--

“Hey, what do you say about this?” Robb calls Theon the moment the statement’s released. “I mean, your sister was never involved in politics, was she?”

“No, because she’s smart and thought our dad’s politics were shit,” Theon says. He still sounds sleep-deprived - then again Robb’s barely been in during the last three days. He could camp at the magazine’s offices, at this point. “Anyway, if she’s negotiating then this thing might actually get solved without bloodshed. She’s not an idiot and she’s sensible and she’d never dream to say that the Islands _don’t_ depend on food imports. Hey, if you want to talk to her I can just tell her to give whoever of you draws the short straw the first interview, she wouldn’t mind.”

“ _Really_?”

“Hey, you offered me an engagement visa if idiots listened to my father, didn’t you? That’s the least I owe you.”

“Shut up, I did it because I’m selfish and I’d like to date you in spite of this bloody referendum’s results.”

“That was almost fucking romantic. Go do your job, won’t you?”

“Yeah, sure.” _Love you too_ , he’s about to say, but maybe it’s too soon, and so he doesn’t.

 _Not just yet_.

“What does your boyfriend have to comment about this?” Jon asks.

“He says things might look up because she’s the only smart person in the family. Also, she might accept to let us interview her first.”

“What, really?”

“See, he’s not that much of an ass.”

Jon fakes a groan, but given that he hasn’t slept in thirty-six hours and he doesn’t mean it in the first place, it’s not that convincing.

“I see that finally they understood that girls accomplish more,” Ygritte declares after taking a swig of her beer - she’s been sipping one for the last hour while her films develop. Stannis declared that even if they were backing Lannister in not speaking to Greyjoy, there should be a pro-Union march to make him understand that promising referendums to win elections and then handle them this poorly is a bad idea, and so she went and took pictures with real film. She says that they come out better and she loves taking pictures of marches - surely it’s more fun than parliamentary hearings. “Hopefully this mess dies down soon. Also Jon, don’t you dare head for the coffee machine.”

“But -”

“You haven’t slept in an entire fucking day if not more and Mormont is worried for your health, just crash in the dark room while I get the photos ready.”

“Well, if you put it like that -”

“There’s a couch in there. Move.”

Jon shrugs and goes with her - Robb needs to remind him to marry her already, since at least she managed to convince him to do it when he couldn’t for the last, what, sixteen hours. 

“Right,” he says, going back to where Sam, Pyp and Grenn are sitting - they’re all checking the social media. Lately, just one of them wasn’t going to cut it. “Do we have anything new from Tris?”

“Nothing flattering,” Sam sighs. “He says that everyone in charge at the IIIP has disappeared. Like, literally.”

“ _How_?”

“In the sense that you can’t find them physically. They don’t answer their phones and they’re just - nowhere to be found.”

“I can’t believe it,” Robb groans.

“Guys, actually he just sent me an update - it’s on Victarion Greyjoy.”

“Okay. What about him…?”

“He’s, uh, been spotted in a disco.”

“A _disco_.”

“Apparently a very trendy disco in Old Wyk.”

The four of them look at each other.

“I’m going to the restaurant downstairs and buying some fucking tequila. The more chime in, the better quality.”

Everyone puts in ten dollars.

Robb buys two bottles - he’s fairly sure that they’ll sorely need them if this is how things are shaping themselves to be for the next half day.

\--

6.00 PM: Asha Greyjoy is now at the emergency meeting PM Lannister has called in King’s Landing. The other representatives are Sir Wyman Manderly for the North, Sir Arthur Dayne for Dorne, Sir John Royce for the Vale, Margaery Tyrell for the Reach and Sir Tytos Blackwood for the Riverlands. Hopefully she’ll manage to give her people back some dignity, because until now their representatives haven’t quite managed to get as far.

7.30 PM: the meeting is not over yet. The markets are in stall. At least no currency has plummeted further down. According to our Dr. Luwin, it’s a good thing. Dr. Pycelle is currently muttering about the apocalypse possibly coming down upon us if negotiations shall fail.

8.45 PM: the situation has not changed in any way whatsoever but Victarion Greyjoy was apparently arrested after he was found driving while inebriated in Old Wyk. We have no economics-related comment to this nor have our experts, but the entire office agrees that if anyone should be allowed to be inebriated in this moment, it’s us.

9.37 PM: the emergency meeting is over - an accord has reportedly been reached. Asha Greyjoy has assured that should another referendum take place it would be on the Union’s terms as far as the minimum amount of voters required goes, and she also agreed on having a representative from each country supervise the procedures. On his side, Lannister has agreed on immediate elections after the referendum, whichever result is eventually reached. Stannis Baratheon has declared himself fully satisfied with the meeting’s outcome. In short, Asha Greyjoy has never been in politics but has managed to solve this entire mess in two hours while her relatives were nowhere to be found. We are of the opinion that maybe we should all just put her in charge at this point.

10.15: the value of every currency in Westeros is finally rising upwards, albeit tentatively. Is this the light at the end of the tunnel? Only the future will tell, but everyone in this office is calling for blessings to shower upon Asha Greyjoy for the rest of her mortal life.

\--

\--

“God, I can’t believe it’s over. My sister is a saint.” Theon is definitely drunk, Robb decides. Then again _most_ of them are - after they finished putting together the issue about the post-definitive results of the referendum, they all went to Sam’s place because he’s the one with the bigger living room. Robb called Theon and told him to crash there, too, and now - now they’ve been progressively drinking all of the alcohol they had bought in celebration. They still have some ten bottles of whateveritis left, not that he’s caring by now. He’s just less drunk than most of the others because he can hold it better, but he can barely distinguish what he’s tasting by now.

Meanwhile, drunk or not, Theon is totally not moving his head from where it ended on Robb’s thigh a while ago.

“I think _everyone_ agrees. Too bad she isn’t into politics,” Ygritte declares - she’s sitting up against Sam’s couch. Jon also has his head on her thigh, except that he’s completely passed out. Right. He never held alcohol that well.

“Too bad that Robb won’t need to give you that engagement visa though,” Grenn declares. “Y’r father would’ve been even madder.”

“He doesn’t need a visa if he wants to get engaged.”

Wait, _what_?

“‘Sides, my father’s mad already ‘cause he’s definitely going to lose his Union paycheck at the next elections. Who cares. Fucking deserved it.”

“Can’t we hire him for the political analysis columns, that’d be spot on.” Pyp doesn’t sound that drunk either.

“I just want Mormont to hire me _and_ Jon, then we can discuss him,” Robb says, his hand going to Theon’s hair. “No offense given.”

“Never wanted to _write_ columns anyway, you can have them. Fuck, at least people saw that my father’s party was a joke. That’s great. Now if Lannister gets sent home too I might actually change my official residing address for real and stop voting in the fucking islands.”

“Right,” Ygritte slurs, taking another drag from what seems Dornish red - good choice. “He’s right. That’s a good point. I mean, I know Mormont’s already decided his press line f’r the next elections, but guys. _Guys_. Lannister needs to go. We need to start campaigning for fucking real.”

“For Stannis, I hope,” Sam says.

“‘Course, for whom otherwise? Even Mance Rayder’s said he’s not running this round. Guys. If Stannis wins we even get a VP who knows something about how real people actually make ends meet.”

“Good point. Nice guy,” Robb agrees. “So what, not so secret pact where we all swear that we vote Socialist?”

“I’m in,” Theon agrees soundly without moving an inch.

“Yeah,” Pyp chimes in.

“Stannis looks kinda standoffish but Jon says he’s cool, so I’ll trust him,” Grenn declares before reaching for a fresh beer bottle.

“The hell of a question is that, I always voted for that party anyway,” Sam says. “Mormont also owes us a bloody pay rise.”

No one disagrees with that.

“Also Ygritte, didn’t you know his campaign manager?”

“Right. Brienne. I can give her a call after this madness dies down and after she comes back from her honeymoon.”

“Did she manage? In this climate?”

“Well, either her husband went to Baratheon and threatened him or something or Stannis is _that_ ethical, but they’re in the Summer Islands until next week. Shit, now that’d be nice.”

Robb thinks about what Theon said before regarding possible _engagements_ and decides to bring that subject up later when they’re not completely plastered.

But he thinks he’ll be happy to bring it up, indeed. At least this goddamned Pykexit deal did do him good somehow, didn’t it?

\--

\--

\--

\--

10.05 AM: Asha Greyjoy has again stepped up for her country, or so it seems like. Every Ironborn representative in the parliament has offered her to take her father’s seat after he was forced to resign for good, but she has apparently stated that she’s not a complete masochist and she’ll do her duty for her country but she has limits. We can’t honestly disagree with this line of thought.

10.30 AM: Markets have taken to the news extremely well. The Pyke dollar has finally gained some ground since the referendum. Every stock market has opened positively. If this is the light at the end of the tunnel, it was a long time coming.

\--

  
  
  


  


End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was curious:
> 
> \- Yes, Balon's speech is actually Farage's speech at the EU with the necessary edits;  
> \- If you thought we were making fun of Donald "@BetteMidler is an extremely unattractive woman" Trump in Scotland, you got that one right;  
> \- The thing about Victarion being seen at the disco happened as well;  
> \- We had planned this two days after the results and Balon stepping and Asha coming in was like the second thing we decided on. When Farage stepped down last day I about laughed myself to death.
> 
> Again, we hope fervently that the real life situation actually has a decent solution. Meanwhile we figured we'd give a decent one to this utter crack and we hope you had some fun in these dark times with this as well. <3

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, when I was writing this madness this morning, Alfie Allen goes and makes a post on instagram encouraging people to go vote. Since I laughed about the timing for about five minutes, [I'm just gonna leave the link here as well because I can and it was hilarious when it happened](https://www.instagram.com/p/BG8_hrANdkF/?taken-by=alfieeallen). Especially since I figured the Theon in this story would have tweeted about the same thing.
> 
> Also, if you want to the fanarts in high resolution as they were meant to be, there's a post on electricalice's tumblr [here](http://electricalice.tumblr.com/post/146322529522/the-brexit-flotilla-happened-last-week-and-me-and) :D
> 
> POST-VOTE ETA: this was the point where I said I was done.
> 
> Except that I guess I'm not because when we came up with it/published it we were convinced that the remain vote would win out. Then I woke up this morning and I saw the election results and yeah, uh, I'm really sorry guys, I was sure people would opt to remain. I also woke up to a few nice comments saying that this made the readers in question have a laugh in the midst of the horror so I'm really glad about that, but at the same time, again: I'm really, _really_ devastated at the actual result and crossing my fingers that somehow some miracle happens and catastrophes are averted. :( again, condolences to all fellow Brits who actually wanted to stay, we also wanted you to. :(


End file.
